Clean Breaks

by Ruby Lang

  It was on the registry.

  “So tonight is supposed to be a perfect night for viewing the moon,” Jake said, handing her a bottle of water.

  “Perfect night for werewolves.”

  At his sideways glance, she said, “What? On a clear, moonlit night in the Pacific Northwest, a young woman’s fancy turns naturally to Twilight.”

  “Did you read the books? How did you even have time?” He sounded incredulous.

  “Yes, during those long stretches of residency when I needed to stay awake.”

  “Oh, come on. I imagine you studying something, I don’t know, educational. Not some vampire series.”

  “Excuse me, you have a dog named Mulder. Let us not heap scorn on one another’s paranormal franchises of choice.”

  He still looked dubious even as he handed her a container of salad and a packet of dressing and unwrapped a turkey and pesto sandwich for himself.

  “You remembered that I don’t like sandwiches,” she said.

  “Yeah. Although, if that’s changed, there’s turkey with sprouts in the basket. Among other things.”

  “No, this is”—she almost sighed—“this is perfect.”

  “Good.”

  He riffled through the basket a little more, taking out a set of binoculars. “There are telescopes over there if you’d like a better look. But I thought I’d just bring these in case.”

  She nodded and began to eat.

  “So what is it about the books?”

  She considered.

  “I guess I liked them because they were so much about teenagerhood and about sex and figuring out how to deal with weird bodies. Besides, the small town Washington state setting and a sense of being an outsider in a place that you’re technically from—all that hit home.”

  “So it’s not like you secretly long for a powerful man-creature to become obsessed with you and shower you with gifts and also hover over you at night with the threat to tear your throat out with his fangs.”

  “I think history shows that most man-creatures are pretty capable of tearing people’s throats out, fangs or no fangs. So I don’t think that part’s so much wish fulfillment as it is a reality. Sure some women—or men—enjoy reading about the danger. But some don’t. And some stories aren’t always what people—no, what men—think they are. Young women and teenage girls know that especially.”

  “I guess that makes sense. The teenage girls I work with speak amongst themselves in a way that’s different from the way they talk to other people. It’s definitely not the way they usually address me.”

  “I imagine a few have crushes on you.”

  “That’s happened and we deal with it. But I don’t delude myself that they really open up to me. Many of them rightly have trust issues. So they adapt their language when they talk to me.”

  “If teenage girls speak in code, it’s because they’re tired of being spoken down to by grown ass men about the subjects that they know far more about. I work with girls, too. They’re canny—a lot smarter and more organized than boys at that age. They make mistakes, sure, but they also have more tricks to survive.”

  “Like you, at that age.”

  “Like me. Because I had to.”

  She thought of quiet Lena in her office that day.

  Jake didn’t say anything, but he scooted closer to her and put an arm around her. And his warmth and the scent of the air, his soap, and the slightly doggy smell lingering on his jacket were immensely comforting. She hadn’t even known that she needed that feeling. She’d been so busy focusing on figuring out why she didn’t seem to want to work as hard or where her libido had gone, and on being angry or crossing adventures off her list that she’d almost forgotten comfort. Maybe because she’d never had much of it to begin with.

  She put down the salad and buried her face in his shoulder, and she felt his other arm move to hold her.

  “I like this,” she murmured.

  She did. She enjoyed the firmness of his body. He shifted to pull her in more securely, and she enjoyed his breath in her hair.

  She moved her hand up his stomach and to his chest. She curved her hand around a pec and squeezed.

  “Are you taking advantage of this fraught and tender moment to feel me up?” he rumbled.

  “Mmm, yes.”

  “Okay. Good. Carry on.”

  She sighed again. She almost felt drowsy, but it probably wouldn’t be a good idea to fall asleep face-planted in his fleece, on their first official date, before she had even seen the moon through a telescope.

  So she pulled herself reluctantly away from his warmth and let the chill wake up her nerves. But instead of being suffused with virtue for taking herself out of his embrace, she was grouchy. Plus, she hadn’t felt him up as much as she should have. She rubbed her chilly arms. “Let’s get up and look at this moon,” she grumbled.

  There was a short line for the nearest telescope. While they were waiting, Jake got a call. He looked a little concerned. “It’s work. Do you mind if I take this?”

  “Go ahead.”

  A year ago, she would’ve been the one with the phone pressed to her ear, walking off into the dark. She would’ve been the one going off to reassure a patient—or even canceling in the middle of an outing in order to rush to the hospital. And she would have missed this—this night sky, the sound of people laughing and talking.

  A year ago—and with a different person—she probably would have welcomed the break. Work was so much better, so much easier, than trying to be patient with men.

  The blond hipster in front of her turned around. “Sarah.”

  Sarah looked up into the face of a not-so-recent ex-hookup. Great.

  “Oh, hello . . . Max.”

  “I thought it was you.”

  Max moved a little closer. She didn’t want to step back, but if she didn’t, then she would be practically inhaling the fumes of his hair gel. “That’s okay, you can stay where you are,” she said, putting her hands out in front of her.

  She ardently wished that Jake’s caller would be cured of whatever ailed her—and quickly.

  Max laughed. “You’re such a joker, Sarah.”

  He moved as if to kiss her on the cheek, and she remembered why she hadn’t bothered dating him. She’d tried to talk to him, and that had been a mistake because it was clear that he didn’t listen.

  “You look good, Sarah.”

  “Excuse me, are you hitting on my girlfriend?”

  From out of nowhere, Jake strode up quickly and got between them, putting his arm around her and effectively pulling Sarah away from Max’s lips. At Max’s current trajectory, he was about to lean in and make out with Jake’s shoulder.

  Max, who Sarah remembered as being not particularly quick, stopped and backpedaled.

  Bravo.

  Jake was not amused, though. She had never seen him look so grim. Even those smiling eyes had flattened to a dark, lethal line.

  Max looked confused by this turn of events. “Oh, you two are dating?”

  Yep, her memory was correct—Max was definitely not swift. It was time to intervene. But Max wasn’t done talking. “You’re handsome,” he said to Jake in a slightly awed voice.

  Jake didn’t look too impressed with this information, although it certainly was true. In fact, if possible, he looked even better angry. The glower really did something for his eyes and—if she wasn’t mistaken—made the tight muscles of his arms stand out in firm relief.

  But her lust wasn’t really helping the situation—yet. “Yes, he’s very gorgeous, and yes we’re dating. Max, nice seeing you again, but spin back around so we can make out.”

  Max turned slowly, his torso moving first, followed by his shoulders, and finally, after a few reluctant blinks, by his head. He seemed confused. By the handsome.

  Sarah turned to Jake, ready to make good on her threat, but judging by the stiffness of Jake’s posture, he wasn’t quite with the program.

  “He was going to kiss you,” Jake g
rowled.

  “He was going for the cheek.”

  “He was going for your pants.”

  In front of them, Max’s back stiffened a little. He was clearly listening—and longing to turn around. She slid a finger along Jake’s tense jaw. He was right. He was no Disney prince right now. All the anger and darkness were bubbling up in him, and Sarah couldn’t tamp down the small fizzy thrill that bubbled in her stomach at how hard he seemed.

  But this was maybe not where she should be having these feelings.

  Jake snorted. “Was that supposed to be a slam by him, calling me gorgeous?”

  “He didn’t actually use that word—I did. But I don’t think it was a putdown. He was sincere.”

  Jake still frowned. She added, “Plus, you made him completely forget about my pants by arriving on the scene when you did.”

  Even though it was dark, she could tell that Jake’s face hadn’t relaxed. “Remember that conversation we just had about going werewolf? Put the fur down, retract the claws, okay? I just told you that wasn’t my thing.”

  “You used to date.”

  “We went out once or twice.”

  She added softly. “In the line for a telescope at an OMSI event to see the moon is not the place to exercise aggression. The point is, it was over long ago—if it ever even was—so you don’t need to scowl handsomely.”

  He still looked moody. She pulled very gently on his beard and that made his jaw tense in other interestingly sexy ways. She could imagine nosing her way up the line of his furred jaw to his ear—but he unbent enough to kiss her before it was their turn to observe.

  She took her peek first, listening as the guide told her about the way the sun reflected off the moon.

  Then it was Jake’s turn, and she watched his tense form as he bent over the eyepiece. As he watched, she could see his back relax more and more until he finally straightened up again and thanked the woman in charge.

  “What did you think?” she asked.

  “Maybe I want a better telescope for my yard,” he said.

  He was trying to be mild, trying to calm down, because she’d asked him to.

  She pulled him away. “It’s still bothering you that I used to see that guy. Is this going to be a problem for the rest of the night?”

  “If I think about his stupid, smug face, yes.” He added, “I never get this angry. About anything.”

  “Well, if it makes you feel better, I filed him under Stupid Shit I Did in My Twenties along with getting a bob haircut and trying to sing Nancy Sinatra’s ‘Boots’ at karaoke.”

  “That’s such a cliché.”

  “I know.”

  “Other than that, I can’t imagine you having done any stupid shit in your twenties. Like you said, you were organized and smart.”

  “Being organized and smart still means you have plenty to figure out. Didn’t you do anything stupid in your twenties?”

  “I married Ilse.”

  “Oh. Wow.”

  She didn’t know what to say. His irritation was still there, and it surprised her as much as it did him. Jake had never been unkind about his ex-wife, but now that he had just seen another man at least attempt to kiss the woman he was dating, it had surfaced. She didn’t blame him. Sarah almost felt it, too, the sharp twang of confusion and pain—not that he was tied to her through some sort of complicated bond of magic and fate, but because she felt for him. He had always been the kind of person who had been able to put himself in someone else’s place. He empathized with people, and now she was feeling for him.

  She really hated that woman.

  “Let’s use the binoculars. It looks like there’s some good viewing over there,” he said, pointing to a cluster of people.

  He didn’t want to talk anymore.

  That was fine. She wasn’t sure she liked where it was going.

  Chapter Eleven

  Sarah and Jake stayed late—later than Sarah thought she could stay up nowadays. And despite the fact that Jake bristled whenever Max got within ten feet of them, he managed to relax and talk to the guides and ask questions.

  Sarah watched him. He had an easygoing, unobtrusive way of drawing people out. Something about the way he stood, open and yet intimate, the way he listened with his eyes and ears, made the younger people, especially the kids who were out late, want to talk to him. As a result, she and Jake had their own line of people behind them talking about telescopes and phases of the moon.

  Sarah put her hand on his thigh as he pulled out of the parking lot, admiring the tense strength of it as he turned around to check for other cars. She stroked it, her fingers moving up in a long, unhurried movement.

  He was silent. But after a few minutes, he turned abruptly into a smaller lot and pulled her to his hot mouth in one swift movement.

  She felt the scrape of her seatbelt straining at her shoulder and across one sensitive breast. She felt him pulling her, trying to bring her closer, but he was strapped in too, and he didn’t seem to want—didn’t seem to be able—to stop licking at the inside of her mouth or to take his hand out of her hair.

  “Jake,” she gasped as his mouth sucked a line down to her neck.

  “It’s been too long,” he growled.

  Wet, hot excitement welled deep down between her legs. Her thighs and butt shifted on the seat, straining toward him.

  He let go of her suddenly and unsnapped the seat belts that had held them both. “Get in the back,” he said, leaning over to open her door.

  As he straightened up, he slid his index finger in a line across her chest, right across her nipples, and she gasped unsteadily. Her thighs felt so full and thick with need that she almost couldn’t get up and out of the car. The cold outside air seemed almost cruel.

  They met each other in the middle of the back seat. He undid the button on her jeans, sliding his hand into them as he pulled her toward him again.

  She cried out as his fingers skated across her slippery skin and deep into her. His knee was between her legs, too, and she was caught on him at that one point, almost helpless to do anything but grab at his jacket and his belt and try to take them off him.

  He shifted again and banged his head against the top of the car. He cursed, and inside of her, his fingers flexed.

  She finally managed to unzip the jacket and push up his t-shirt. His belt came off soon afterward, and she got his pants down part way before the bulge of his erection defeated her trembling fingers.

  She could feel his thumb on her clit now, working in the tight space, sometimes connecting just right, sometimes not. She whimpered and tried to move her hips again, to chase that elusive touch.

  He let out a frustrated breath and growled in her ear. Then he was pulling his fingers out of her, kissing her, moving his still-damp hand under her t-shirt, the trail of her wetness licking up her spine. He pulled her top off her so quickly that she was momentarily disoriented. Then they were sliding down the seat and he’d stripped off the jacket and her long sleeved t-shirt and unclasped the front opening of her bra, flinging the cups to each side so they dangled like a flimsy vest.

  “Tell me what you want,” he said.

  But it wasn’t a query—it was a demand. It was just as well that she couldn’t speak, because he was already moving.

  Buckles dug into her side, and her thighs were going to cramp while she tried to angle her leg halfway up the seat. It was warm, so warm in the car. The scent of sex and sweat thickened the air, and as he maneuvered himself over her, she finally managed to get her hands under his shirt and down into his jeans for a hard squeeze that made his breath catch—almost choke—before he pushed her down firmly and bent his head to suck on her nipple, then moved down.

  “Tell me what you want, Sarah. Do you want me to eat you out with your legs splayed as wide as they’ll go in the back seat? Or do you want to get on top of me and fuck my face?”

  His question ended on a gasp. Again, he seemed as surprised as she at his words. He was doing this because of h
er, because she had transformed him from a quiet man into this desperate, urgent creature.

  She drew in an unsteady breath. “I want you. I want you in me.”

  It was nearly pitch-black in the car with him above her, blocking out any of the light the moon might have given them. She’d forgotten how dark it could get in the countryside. All she had was sound to guide her as she felt her way down his body, but his soft beard and mouth and hands found her again and again with a quick and direct effectiveness. This was not going to be a languorous night.

  Let the fucking suit the occasion, she thought before he skimmed his teeth across her ribs and seemed to rear up again.

  He was pulling her jeans farther down, pausing to get her shoes and socks off, and then discarding all of the lower body clothing. She heard the crackle of the condom package, the white outline of it pulled over his cock. In the sudden silence she heard herself whisper, “Please, please,” thrashing her head back and forth. It was the only movement she could manage now.

  She felt the pressure of him before he entered her, the promise that soon he wouldn’t be just inside her, but he would be expanding her, making her body and mind stretch beyond what she thought she could be.

  She reached her hands up and pulled him down into her, and it was almost as if it pushed the sob out of her lungs.

  He thrust hard, pushing her across the seat so that her head banged on the armrest. She cried out. He did it again and reached to pull her leg up over his shoulder. She felt the brush of her foot against the cool window, and he thrust into her again, reaching down to kiss her furiously, his lips and teeth clashing with hers.